Month: November 2024

As predicted by Alexis deToqueville:

You take a conventional man of action, and he’s satisfied if you obey, eh? But not the intellectual. He doesn’t want you just to obey. He wants you to get down on your knees and praise the one who makes you love what you hate and hate what you love. In other words, whenever the intellectuals are in power, there’s soul-raping going on. – Eric Hoffer

This is one of the most horrific things I think I’ve ever read, but more people need to read it, all the way to the end. To Shatter Men’s Souls – John Carter’s Substack

I wrote this one six years ago – “What are the origins of gun control/the anti-gun movement? How, and why, did it start?”

Historically? Settle in, this will take a few minutes.

Despite the brilliant and inspiring words of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, prior to the establishment of the American form of Constitutional Republicanism governments were not instituted among men to secure their unalienable rights. Instead, governments were established to protect and expand the power and privilege of the powerful and privileged – and for no other reason.

As Mao observed in the early 20th Century, “all political power grows from the barrel of a gun,” but prior to the invention of firearms political power still sprouted from coercive force and the tools of that coercive force. In order to maintain and expand the power and privilege of the powerful and privileged the concept of a monopoly of the legitimate use of force was conceived, though it wasn’t codified until the late 16th or early 17th Century. The book World History of Warfare notes:

One frequently quoted letter from the second invasion (of Korea by Japan) comes from Asano Yukinaga, who wrote to his father in Japan in 1598 after surviving a bitter siege by Chinese and Koreans in Uru-san: “When troops come [to Korea] from the province of Kai, have them bring as many guns as possible, for no other equipment is needed. Give strict orders that all men, even the samurai, carry guns.” Despite these progressive sentiments, the forth stage of Japanese warfare emerged when, starting with Hideyoshi and carrying on through the rule of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616), who was proclaimed shogun in 1603, firearms were forcibly withdrawn from general use. In fact, in a series of stages, Japan was disarmed in order to create a strong central government without fear of rebellions and at the same time preserving a sharper distinction between samurai and farmer. Hideyoshi originally issued the order for a “sword hunt” in August 1588 with the overt intention of building a vast Great Buddha but actually intending to disarm the country: “The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, short swords, bows, spears, firearms or other types of arms. The possession of unnecessary implements [of war] makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues and tends to foment uprisings….”

So “gun control” has a long and storied history, as does its implementation by deceit. Not long after the establishment of the United States, one of the foremost legal minds of that day wrote a review of American Constitutional Law, giving homage to a similar work done in England by Sir William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England published in 1765. St. George Tucker published his American expansion on Blackstone’s Commentaries in 1803. It became the go-to text for American law schools. In Tucker’s Blackstone he wrote about our right to arms:

This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty. . . . The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty.

“Gun control” is now sold as a public safety issue, though we know from history what a world without guns is really like – it’s run by large men with other weapons, and is not particularly safe, free, or equal. If guns are restricted only to government, well, that makes the collection of taxes much easier, and the powerful and privileged get to keep (and expand) their power and privilege without concern for the feelings of the peasants.

As the meme goes, “I saw a movie once where only the government had guns. It was called ‘Schindler’s List’.”

“Gun control” isn’t about guns. It isn’t about “safety.” It’s about control.